Search Courses
You may search for a Senior Capstone course by selecting a THEME or TERM from the menu at the left. You may also search by entering a part of the title or the instructors name in the box below. For concise listings of all 2021-2022 Capstone offerings, review our Capstone Capsule. If you need assistance, contact the Capstone Office/University Studies at 503.725.5890.
Please refer to the PSU Class Schedule regarding the days, hours, and meeting location. For information about when the new class schedule is available or when you can register for the new term, follow this link: When to Register.
NOTE: Due to the intensive nature of Capstones, students must receive permission from the course instructor prior to the first day of class if they are going to miss the first class session. For on-line Capstones, students must demonstrate active participation during the first week of the term. All Capstone courses factor in student attendance and participation into the final grade which is deeply impacted by missing the first week of the term.
NOTE: "Sustainability" tagged courses will NOT automatically count toward the Sustainability Minor. Students must seek approval from Joseph Maser, Ph.D. in the Environmental Science & Management department to count any Capstone toward that specific minor.
SEARCH BY Title or Instructor: Enter a single word from the title of a Capstone, "gardens", "justice", "literacy", etc., the Course Registration Number (CRN), or a professor's first or last name in the box below.
Instructor Name: Deborah Burke
CRN: 63807
This Capstone will partner with the Learning Gardens Laboratory (LGL), a 12-acre garden education site on Portland’s southeast side. Students work collaboratively to gather stories of community gardeners, teachers, and community partners who regularly gather at LGL to learn and farm. Capstone students will gain skills in interviewing, storytelling, and using narrative as a means for social change, in addition to learning about sustainable food systems and the impact of learning gardens.
Spring 2020Spring 2021Spring 2022Spring 2023
Community Health Sustainability Education social justice Ecology Garden-based learning food
Instructor Name: Amy Collins
CRN: 63943
Dismantling Inequities
This course will provide students with the opportunity to explore the primary prevention of interpersonal violence and other forms of systemic harm. Essential to the praxis of the course is a social justice framework that scrutinizes the impact of socialization on the creation of judgments and prejudices that lead to inequities in experiences of violence. Success in this work requires innovative, integrated approaches that leverage partnerships to drive structural,...
Spring 2020Spring 2021Spring 2022
Instructor Name: Megan Schneider
CRN: 64572
Cultural Ecology in the Urban Forest at Tryon Creek
This course is designed to inspire and question the ways we educate both ourselves and our next seven generations as global stewards. Through remote discussions and exercises, readings and media, nature journaling, and personal reflection, students will gain a deeper appreciation of the authentic cultural ecology of the area. Students will have the opportunity to collaboratively apply their learning to a community outreach project that helps...
Fall 2020Fall 2021Fall 2022Spring 2022Spring 2023Summer 2020Summer 2021
Education - Youth
Instructor Name: Julia Dancis
CRN: 64010
Description
This two-term capstone will explore a core community psychology framework--Participatory Action Research (PAR). In the spirit of learning by doing, students will partner with groups on campus to design action research projects around the course theme: Disrupting Systemic Racism at PSU. These projects will involve collecting data and using those data to inform social action. The course will culminate with group reflections on the projects and on Participatory Action Research...
Spring 2021Winter 2021
Research social justice Anti-Racism
Instructor Name: Lydia Fisher
CRN: 45260
Farm Ed for Youth: Growing Stories
"Do you want to help connect school age children to the natural environment at this time when outdoor learning is so important?"
This Capstone will partner with the Sauvie Island Center (sauvieislandcenter.org). The mission of the Sauvie Island Center is “educating youth about food, farming, and the land.” Students will work collaboratively with the Sauvie Island Center staff to develop curriculum for school age children, help the Center to share the...
Winter 2022
Community Health Sustainability Ecology Farm-based learning food Education Storytelling
Instructor Name:
Course Description: This course will focus on how we can create sustainable and just change in our food system and beyond. Students will explore the concepts of sustainability, sustainability leadership, food justice, and food sovereignty through community-based learning with the Wombyn's Wellness Garden (WWG) at the Oregon Food Bank. This course will focus on community building, group discussions and activities, and will work on projects that support the mission of the WWG. For Spring Term...
Ecology and Sustainability food; food insecurity; hunger; sustainability
Instructor Name: Megan Schneider
CRN: 14018
Course Description: This course will focus on the themes of food justice and sovereignty and how we can create just and sustainable change in our food systems. Students will explore food heritage, food justice and sovereignty, sustainability, sustainability leadership, and form emergent strategies in implementing food systems that embrace these concepts. Students will learn basic gardening skills and reflect on their time in the garden in connection with assigned readings and class discussions...
Fall 2021Spring 2021
Ecology and Sustainability food; food insecurity; hunger; sustainability Garden-based learning
Instructor Name: Deborah Burke
CRN: 63776
This Capstone course introduces oral history as a method for documenting, preserving, and amplifying the diverse histories and voices of Portland’s LGBTQ+ communities. Our community partner for this course is the Gay and Lesbian Archives of the Pacific Northwest (GLAPN).
Through listening to interviews with queer elders and exploring related primary source materials, we will learn about local queer history. Topics will include political activism of the 1970s, the anti-gay backlash and ballot...
Fall 2021Fall 2022Spring 2021Spring 2022Spring 2023Summer 2021Summer 2022Winter 2021Winter 2022Winter 2023
LGBTQ
Instructor Name: Amie Riley, Liv Parks
CRN: 13932
Nearly half of all PSU students have experienced food insecurity and over 15% have experienced homelessness. This Capstone considers the challenges of housing insecurity and homelessness, faced by our country and here on our campus, through a critical systems-thinking approach to complex social issues. The course is guided by our collaborators at The PSU Landing at FUMC: A new PSU community resource sheltering students through housing crisis and transitions. Capstone student projects will work...
Fall 2021Fall 2022Spring 2021Spring 2022Winter 2022
Hunger Homelessness Food security; Food insecurity; University students; College campus;
Instructor Name: Deborah Rutt
CRN: 81278
This course will explore the concepts of sustainability, growing food, and personal connection to land/nature through community engagement with the PSU Learning Gardens Lab (LGL). This course focuses on community building, group discussion, and personal reflection and will involve working on projects that support the mission of LGL. LGL is located in SE Portland at 6745 SE 60th Ave, Portland, OR 97206.
Spring 2021Summer 2022
Garden-based learning Learning Gardens Learning Garden Sustainability community engagement
Instructor Name: Megan Schneider, Lukas Maurer
CRN: 81265
This course will focus on how we can create sustainable and just change in our food system and beyond. Students will explore the concepts of sustainability, sustainability leadership, food justice, and food sovereignty through community-based learning with the PSU Learning Gardens Lab (LGL). This course will focus on community building, group discussions and activities, and will work on projects that connect LGL with on-campus food security efforts. For Spring Term 2022, this course will...
Spring 2022Summer 2021Summer 2022
Learning Gardens Food Justice
Instructor Name: Lydia Fisher
CRN: 64815
Do you want to help reconnect school age children to the natural environment after a year of lockdown and remote learning?
This Capstone will partner with the Sauvie Island Center (sauvieislandcenter.org). The mission of the Sauvie Island Center is to “equitably educate elementary school-aged children about food, farming, and the land.” The center runs place-based farm education trips and events at Topaz Farm on Sauvie Island and creates food systems learning content for grade-school...
Fall 2021Spring 2022Winter 2022
Grant Writing Grantwriting; Sustainability Education sustainability and environment
Instructor Name: Suzanne Savaria
CRN: 44053
Students will support in sharing stories of local, socially engaged artists by creating podcasts in collaboration with McDaniel Highschool students. Art Talk Bus Stop is a public art education program and monthly podcast interview series about how artists do their work and make a living. Students learn about arts and cultural work and careers, and get hands-on experience producing alive interview, learning the technology, research and storytelling skills.
Spring 2022Winter 2023
Arts Education
Instructor Name: Laura Nissen
CRN: 64817
This hybrid Capstone will examine a “futures” or “foresight” lens. Students will explore how futurism, community power, justice and well-being intersect through a critical lens. Using foresight methods to explore how issues of emerging technologies, smart cities, food and/or health justice, the future of racism and other isms impact the way that social change strategies and methods will need to evolve with the times, and then share findings with community leaders and funders.
Spring 2022
Social Sustainability; Community Health
Instructor Name: Amie Riley
CRN: 63794
This Capstone explores visions for a just food system that empowers all community members to have equitable access to healthful, nutritious and culturally appropriate foods, information and education about food systems, and land to grow, without exploitation and with a commitment to sustainability. Students will engage with readings, group discussions, group activities, and Capstone team project work, to investigate the concepts of sustainability, food justice, and food sovereignty. Through...
Fall 2022Spring 2023Winter 2023
Instructor Name: Suzanne Savaria
CRN: 13951
This course provides students the opportunity to create change in communities as philanthropists. Students will identify and analyze the needs of the Oregon arts community and develop leadership skills through grantmaking to non-profit organizations providing arts and culture in our state. In partnership with The Harold and Arlene Schnitzer Care Foundation: CommuniCare, students will engage in leadership and philanthropy, inspiring and cultivating future active citizens. Students will learn...
Fall 2022
Instructor Name: Laura Nissen
A Futures Lens for Community Power, Justice and Well-Being. This hybrid capstone will examine issues of power, justice and well-being intersect through a critical lens. Using foresight methods, students will work with local funders to discuss real-world challenges and prepare specific future-oriented “forecasts” to help inform and guide the way that funding is distributed in our community. This might include such topics as the future of technology in cities, the future of racism and other isms...
Instructor Name: Deborah Burke
CRN: 63781
For this in-person capstone students will engage in communal art practice with members of a brain injury community associated with Brain Injury Connections Northwest (BIC-NW) (https://braininjuryconnectionsnw.org/) to expand their understanding of the lived experiences of brain injury survivors and the impacts of ableism as it intersects with other oppressions on brain injury communities. Additionally, students will investigate how art practiced in solidarity with brain injury communities can ...
Spring 2023
Instructor Name:
The Animal Empathy Project: Creating Compassion Through Art
- Digital art can help us reach wider, more inclusive audiences to tell stories, capture emotions, and grapple with the issues of our time. This fully online Capstone examines the ways humans live with, utilize, and treat nonhuman animals in their everyday lives. Students will reflect on their identities and skills in a collaborative setting to research and create digital art that our community partner can use to advance its wildlife...
Spring 2023
Animals Arts Empathy